Next 3 Exits
by Jarissa Paxton
Summary: Potential heroes from around the world come to Paragon City every day. However, most don't have this kind of trouble with just getting into the city itself.
1. Chapter 1

Legal Note:

City of Heroes, City of Villains, Paragon City, Rogue Isles, Crey Industries, Countess Crey, Paragon City Police Department, Longbow, and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cryptic Studios and NCsoft Corporation. No infringement of said trademark/copyright is intended or implied, and no profit may be made from this work by anybody except Cryptic Studios and/or NCsoft Corporation.

Wyldfire and all original characters are property of the author and her family, and may not be used elsewhere -- and anyway, why would one want to steal these when it's so much easier to instead make new characters in the _City of..._ franchise?

Please do not archive elsewhere.

* * *

The sun was nearly at its peak before the silver-skinned teenager awoke. He pushed upright out of the piled leaves immediately -- probably they itched -- and stared around, wide-eyed. 

_I ought to say something comforting to him. He may not be able to see me up here._

Nevertheless, the only sound for the next few minutes was the rustle of leaves as he patted his surroundings, testing (perhaps) for hard spots where one of the previous day's travelling companions might still be burrowed in, asleep. When that turned up nothing, he thought for a moment, then turned -- almost as if drawn by a magnet -- to look up into the oak tree near his back. "Jarissa," he said in his calmest tone, "where did the others go?"

The brown cat-eyes meeting his blinked once, but never wavered from his face as their owner carefully picked her way down to a lower tree limb. "They wandered off," she said hoarsely, "in different directions, over the night."

He thought about that while combing his fingers through unruly white locks of hair. "Do you think they're coming back?"

Without pause for reflection, her ears flicked back and her whiskers drooped. "No. I think they feel safer splitting apart. Single travellers are harder to hunt than groups."

He had to concentrate only a little to understand her words, a noticeable improvement from the struggle yesterday when she was explaining how to board a moving train and why, despite Ironhorse's snarling objections, it would be safest for them all to do so immediately and together.

"But you stayed here with me," he observed.

She looked away long enough to glance around the clearing, ears twitching. "You'd have woke up alone. I won't do that to you. We didn't survive the escape, and clinging to the top of a moving train car through three states, just so any of us could go back to having no clue what's safe." She shrugged one shoulder, and her tail made a similar upward-fllicking motion. "Besides. I had no idea where I'd go, and I'm too tired to figure it out. And hungry."

"Yeah, I'm hungry too. Thanks, Rissa. Did you ever figure out where we are?"

Jarissa navigated slowly down to the forest floor. "I don't know. Wolf said he saw a road sign for someplace called Paragon, during that last stretch where the train went along a highway."

"Paragon City?" He became excited immediately, his blue eyes glowing more brightly at the thought. "In Rhode Island? Cool! I wonder if we'll see any heroes. Hey, we could _be_ heroes! We just need costumes. And heroic names. I could be Silverwing -- no, wait, I remember a really famous hero named Silver Wing, so it's taken already. Silver Mercury, then. Or Silver Valor. I'm not sure what all my powers will be so I don't want to name myself after a trademark move, I'd have to create one first and that takes too long. What name are you gonna use, Rissa?"

She stared at him unblinkingly for a few heartbeats, whiskers drawn back and both ears pointed toward him. The more excited he got, the faster he talked, to the point that she almost couldn't follow him. "I, uhm, the only thing I can think of is a name from a comic I used to read," she offered apologetically. "I don't want to get sued, Blue Eyes, like that poor guy in the eighties. And anything based on _my_ appearance is too, well, too hokey. I'll go catch us some breakfast, be back soon, okay?"


	2. Chapter 2

Approaching the city from the north-northwest, they found themselves stumped as to how to get across the Baumton Canal -- and the War Walls, glimmering in the distance, promised an even more difficult obstacle for anyone trying to slip into the city. "It looks like we can climb up on this road," suggested the self-named Silver Valor. "It's got a bridge heading across here and the river, and the traffic is really light -- must be because it's getting kind of late in the day."

Jarissa squinted at the spot where the giant wall and the road met; it was much closer to the canal, little more than half a mile south past the steep shore. She'd have climbed a tree for a better view if any of them actually exceeded the level of the controlled-access highway, but the only ones present were manicured little cherry trees, no more than four years old, and probably transplanted into these neat rows within the past year. "I think there's a toll booth," she said slowly, "and men with _guns_. So, maybe inspections."

And inspections meant proof of citizenship, which they didn't have, and records of their passing, which they didn't want so soon; he thought briefly about climbing along on the underside of the bridge, decided he didn't care to risk getting shot or trapped, and glanced back toward the west. "Well, that leaves the train tracks again."

"Elevated," Jarissa noted, tail twitching anxiously behind her. "We can climb the strut there where it bends south, just before the shore; but it's going to be rough going. And we can't get above the train, so we can't get on top of the train, so we'll have to hope none comes along while we're crossing the water or passing through the wall or whatever."

"We can probably make that, no problem," Silver replied calmly. "The trick is just getting up onto the tracks in the first place, without drawing attention." A thought struck him, slowing down his words: "Uhh, how thick d'you suppose that wall is?"

As her gaze swept from the metal strut over toward the track's tunnel into the War Wall, a momentary change of shape in the entrance's shadow made her flinch. Her right arm snapped out as if to bar Silver's forward motion. "'Tchoosee tha'?"

Luminous blue eyes blinked. "Hunh? You're slurring again."

Jarissa's tail lashed twice, expressing frustration that her face could no longer display, and she forced herself to repeat more distinctly, "Did you see that? Something jus' swung up from under the track."

By careful squinting and a little luck, Silver managed to focus on the blob of darkness as it straightened to a man's height on the track, tested its balance for an instant, then hurried into the darkness. "Well," he replied cheerfully, "at least we know now it can be--"

Anything else he said was lost in the abrupt roar of a passing monorail train, racing into the city at an astonishing speed.


	3. Chapter 3

The loose leaves had settled in the wake of the train's passing before either dared to move again. "It's not a maglev," Silver Valor announced, "so we're still okay. The track will be cement, with an embedded dual third rail on either side that'll carry enough charge to fry us if we trip and fall on it, unless they're sticking purely to a diesel engine. Which you'd smell, I figure."

"You're technobabbling."

He grinned, albeit weakly. "Hey, I really like Star Trek. It was doing about eighty-five, maybe ninety, when it passed over us, but it decelerated the whole way across the river. Couldn't have been traveling more than forty-eight by the time it reached the tunnel entrance. No problem."

Rissa's whiskers flattened further back against her face. "I don't know about you, but _I_ can't run forty-_anything_ miles an hour."

He returned her frank, not-quite-appalled stare. "What, you can't? Not even under adrenaline? What are all those spots for, then?"

Jarissa glared sourly, then turned away to watch for the next train. "Those aren't spots, they're _rosettes._ I'm mostly leopard, no cheetah in me at all. They tried cheetah DNA in the project before me, and it didn't work out."

"Heh. Got you." One silvery hand brushed through the fur on her upper arm and shoulder, deliberately ruffling it against the grain. "No, we can't outrun it, of course not. But logically, it'll continue to slow as it travels through the tunnel; it's probably down to speeds where it's really quiet by the time it's actually inside the city. We'll swing up to cross the canal just after a train passes, when the sun's a lot lower in the sky. By the time we work our way to the start of the train tunnel, it'll be nearly sunset; we make sure the track's clear to the western horizon, and that way we'll know we have enough time to run pretty far. If a train approaches, it'll have its headlight on. We'll see it in plenty of time to find a maintenance alcove. If that other guy could do it with an incoming train so close, then it's got to be beatable."

Rissa studied him thoughtfully. "You sound very sure of this."

He gave an embarrassed half-shrug. "Not too different from an obstacle course they made me run. Only it wasn't a monorail, didn't go over a body of _water_, and something kept launching mortars toward my feet."

* * *

The vertical climb wound up being the most arduous, time-consuming segment of their cross-river trip. By the time Silver Valor stopped to rest near the support strut's apex, five more trains had barreled past. Vibrations from the lattermost almost shook him loose from the steel latticework. Jarissa's physical structure clearly was more suited to rapid ascents -- her grinning suggestion that he "think of it as a tree, monkeyboy" didn't really help, either -- but she was just as out-of-breath when she tightened her grip, pushed outward and upward, then braced herself part-way onto the cement track for a good look to the west. "None yet. When we do this, try to make it to the second strut after the shoreline before climbing back down off the track. I think there's a little platform around the joint between the track and that support column."

"That'd be nice," Silver gasped. "I'm not looking forward to doing this again at the wall. You think we could just travel on the track?"

Rissa's tailtip made the sideways flick that meant "maybe". She looked him over in concern, then suddenly pivoted to stare below the descending sun again. "Here comes one. Hold on tight." Dropping back down next to him, she wound her arms through the steel lattice, away from the tight corners so she wouldn't get pinched, and pressed slightly against his side.

He tucked his head against his forearms, not quite resting his head against the metal, and tried to breathe normally. "They design these things so trespassers can't do exactly this, you know." Whatever she said in response was lost in the rush of the passing monorail.

Then it was past, and they were scrambling up onto the track, settling into a ground-eating jog on a cement track less than a foot wide, hoping to travel a mile without getting knocked over by the canal winds, and before the next train popped up.


End file.
